Dear Marco, and all,
I would like to sort things out a little before I go on. All this discussion
as well as that with elephant and others in the sparse/trivial thread has
brought up a variety of issues. For me, possibly because I am a newbie here,
they became too blurred with one another. Overall, I feel that Marco thought
I was suggesting that we use a strongly logic-based game to discuss
metaphysics. That was simply not my point.
Despite my confusion, the discussion is really interesting. So it may be of
great help if Marco or others interested in this thread helped me sort out
ideas. To do so, I will try to list some of the different issues that we
raised, to see if you feel the need to add more, or otherwise do not agree
with the list itself, or if some points can be removed altogether because we
all agree. Of course, a perfectly reasonable objection to each of the points
below (the one that I mostly expect in this context) is that it is not false
or true but meaningless (please provide reasons...).
Anywhere, I use "Quality" meaning DQ, not static quality. "Perceiving
Quality" means the immediate experience of value: but I would like to know
if you believe this:
SQ) "Perceiving" Quality really means perceiving static quality. One cannot
directly experience DQ. DQ has to do with an evolution in the way we
perceive sq, or what we perceive as sq, not something that we directly
"see". Or a perception of DQ is a dramatic event such as "enlightment" and
occurs sporadically, sometimes (usually) never occurs at all in one's life.
Let's begin:
Q1) Quality is beyond logic, and cannot be precisely described by words.
Q2) Your perception of Quality is beyond logic, and cannot be precisely
described by words.
I believe both.
Q3) your perception of Quality is itself limited by your individual horizons
(context, experience, etc.). Thus you and I perceive Quality in different
ways. (This is stronger than saying that we would describe it with different
words, if forced to, unless you believe that you perceive exactly what you
can describe and exactly the way you would describe it).
It may be useful to state that in any case, this is not related to the idea
of a single "me" program run by everyone. That may or may not be the case,
independently of Q3). If we all run the same "me" program, it is still a
fact that we live different lives and store different data, and that could
still yield Q3). If Q3) holds, and since it is your individual essence (with
its limitation) that attaches meanings to words, yielding *your* language,
in this sense one may say that your language is your world (including
Quality).
If one accepts Q3), one may wonder whether believing that there *is* a
"universal" value and that we perceive it in different ways is sensible.
That is we could discuss statements of the following forms:
Q4) Quality is one, but we perceive it in different ways;
Q5) Quality is about how and what we perceive rather than being what is
perceived, so Q4) is meaningless or wrong
Those would be very interesting subjects for further discussion, to me. A
parallel question is where does the concept of Truth fit in all this, if it
fits at all. I would be very interested to know your opinion. Some
statements on truth:
T1) there is an absolute truth, which metaphysics can only approximate (as
the truth has to do with Quality and metaphysics is linguistic)
T2) there is an absolute truth, which metaphysics can describe completely
provided it has the right tools, e.g., the concept of Quality
T3) the concept of truth is opposed to that of Quality - so metaphysics goes
for the "better" and not for the "true"
Especially in the light of T3, it is unclear to me why MOQ should insist to
be "science" or "logic", as these seem more like tools for discovering
truths than for discovering beauty. If one believes T3, and also believes
that MOQ should be logic, it seems that s/he should think that the MOQer
should pretend not to be aware of T3 to work within the MOQ framework.
Perhaps MOQ can be rephrased by saying that it attempts at seeing what can
be gained by searching for quality with the tools that apply to truth. This
would also be the meaning of the idea of "rationally understand you are one
with the universe" when lying on top of a mountain and thinking MOQ. Or you
may think that logic is a tool for discovering beauty, not truth. Or...?
Finally, in this thread we came up with:
L1) language is a part of reality.
I believe this (of course). Language is a topic to be addressed if you want
to describe the world, and at the same time something that modifies the
world. It modifies the world both because it is a part of the world (like my
dog modifies the world by digging in the garden) and because our notion of
"world" in a SOM sense is itself created by language (which are of course
two different things). Thus:
L2) language is a part of reality just like my dog, and interacts with it;
L3) language creates my (SOM) reality.
That is all very sensible. But as a consequence of Q3, Q4 and Q5, one may
also state that:
L3) language (in a very wide sense) creates my reality (in general - not my
SOM reality).
By reality in general vs SOM reality I mean pre-linguistic, immediately
perceived reality (with value as a pivot) vs categorized, conceptualized,
post linguistic, reality.
Thanks to anyone who wants to help :)
Andrea Sosio
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